Injury Notes: Letang, Dupuis, Datsyuk, Yakupov and Butler

Shelly Anderson of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Kris Letang’s wife found him on the floor in their house on Jan. 29th, he was conscious, but “I was just not able to function,” he recalled. He’s at the rink and trying to recover from the stroke.

“Right now, we’re trying to intensify things, trying to teach my head and my body how to react to work out in an intense workout,” he said.

“I have some good days, bad days,” he said. “I’m going day by day to get to 100 percent. It’s not as bad as when it happened, but there are symptoms. Some days, it’s stronger symptoms than others.”

A small hole in his heart was also found, likely there since birth.

“The hole in the heart is not a problem because I’ve been living with it for 26 years, and I never had a problem with it, conditioning-wise or anything like that,” he said.

“The symptoms are from that stroke, what damage it did to my brain. For now, it’s just worrying about my head.”

“You guys know me, you know I’ll be pushing for six,” he said. “So it’s definitely a goal of mine. It definitely looks and sounds long, but I guess you can’t rush healing. Feeling good, the surgery went well. So it’s rehab right now and it’s one day at a time.”

Dupuis knew the injury was bad right away.

“Everything felt so loose that nothing was holding it,” Dupuis said. “I don’t know if you’ve seen the picture of me going back to the bench, (in it) I’m holding my leg and I’m like alright, is there something down there? It feels much better now, though.”

Ansar Khan: Red Wings Pavel Datsyuk (knee) was held out of the third period as a precaution.

Pro Hockey Talk: Oilers Nail Yakupov left last night’s games with an ankle injury.